Incredibly insightful statement by Alan Cox - Journal of Omnifarious

Jan. 13th, 2003

12:28 pm - Incredibly insightful statement by Alan Cox

Here are a series of statements and replies that I think are very insightful and sharpen some fuzzy ideas I had floating around in the back of my head. Alan Cox refuses to come to the US now for fear that some company will find an excuse to throw him in jail over a DMCA violation. Given what has happened to Dimitry Skylarov, I can't blame him.

It's interesting reading that IBM was actively "dissuading" SCO from carrying out this threat.

IBM has an enormous number of software patents that probably cover every operating system on the market. IBM, unlike SCO, understands that for software companies software patents are like nuclear weapons. They are useful as a deterrent, and useless for anything else.

There's a story, possibly apocryphal, about how a Microsoft lawyer contacted IBM's legal department, informed them that they had a patent that IBM's operating systems infringed upon, and set up a meeting to discuss royalty payments. The IBM legal team supposedly showed up with a pile of hundreds of patents that Windows infringed on, and that was the end of that.

I suspect that this is the nature of the dissuasive force being brought to bear by IBM.

This seems to be a useful side effect of large companies like IBM adopting Linux. They serve as a certain form of protection against this sort of shakedown racket, at least from by actual software companies.

The only companies that are able to enforce software patents with impunity are those companies that don't actually manufacture software, like PANIP This highlights the destructive uselessness of software patents -- they are only capable of benefiting companies that don't produce software, in other words, lawsuit factories like PANIP.

Oh yes, they also benefit the patent office to the tune of millions of dollars a year -- a destructive racket in and of itself.

The mechanics of American business are defined by meetings such as this. IBM is standing in the gap for the moment, but I am afraid that Linux's nebulousness will result in its being banned in the U.S., simply because no one will be around to go to the closed door meetings you describe.

We could of course, organize protests, and these might be well attended and done with heroic emphasis, but those of us who understand the very concept of electronic freedom are in a hopeless minority. Most computer users are perfectly happy with Windows, AOL, IE, etc., and are actively hostile to those sufficiently aware of the open source world to be concerned about these issues.

I have a two pronged approach to this problem. On the one hand, I am doing everything I can to evangelize for electronic freedom. If enough Americans understand the sheer tyranny megacorps exert over how we use information, we might be able to change things. I'm not optimistic, however, so plan B is finding another country to live in. I have to say that I've never imagined leaving the United States in search of freedom.

One thing you have to realise is that twenty years from now nobody will care if one wacky bankrupt state has banned Linux. There will be no real IT industry left in the USA by then anyway. The odd billion chinese people are slightly more significant.

People like PANIP are the final death throes. The innovators dilemma is destroying the west. We lost the heavy industry, we have to pay farmers to avoid losing farming, we are losing the support businesses, gradually the more efficient nations munch their way up the food chain. Soon all that will be left are the futile attempts to own ideas and lawyers.

That won't last long either. There are a lot of non US companies building huge patent pools. Their staff are cheaper, their lawyers don't charge outrageous fees and they have lots of young and bright staff encouraged to think rather than to conform for fear of liability and lawsuits for being original.

Something to think about as you watch the US drop your tax money out of bombers over the desert.

You might also want to browse the replies to Alan Cox.

One of those replies points out that we're still the freest place in the world. I strongly question whether or not that will be true in 5-10 years. Already some people from other countries are wanting to get out and go back to their country.

We've not been taking the honorable path and withdrawing our troops and influence around the world, now that we're no longer the balancing superpower against the influence of another superpower. Instead, we've been taking it upon ourselves to be the world's policemen, and to continue meddling in the affairs of other countries. We're blowing our chance to avoid becoming a despotic empire.

I don't necessarily think we shouldn't be putting pressure on, and possibly going to war with Iraq. And, North Korea is a very credible threat to our own national security, and should be treated as such. But, I think we should start taking our troops out of other countries. We don't need to be everybody's buffer against the Soviet Union anymore. Our use of military force should be directly tied to the physical (not economic) security of our citizens.

We need to look to our serious problems at home. The corporate situation is as bad or worse now in this country than it was at the turn of the century. Our IP law is a travesty. And our continuous fighting of ill-defined, nebulous wars has left our civil liberties much the worse for wear. We barely have a 3rd, 4th, or 5th ammendment anymore.